Press Article
Pos Sol looks to add to its ranks with scheme
By David Pawsey
Financial Adviser,
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Positive Solutions is aiming to bring new blood into the IFA sector with the launch of an apprenticeship scheme.
Following on from the launch of its adviser training academy in July, Positive Solutions is looking to take on 20 candidates to become qualified IFAs through the initiative.
Keith Gilmour, marketing director of Positive Solutions, said 10 candidates would be selected from each of its IFA partners in the Manchester and London area, with courses lasting between one and two years.
Mr Gilmour said: "It has been created to support the needs of our partners by developing a flow of new and ambitious IFAs to help them manage and grow their business over the long term.
"A significant number of our IFA partners have administrators and paraplanners who would like to progress so we thought it would be really good if there was a formal structure to make them fully fledged IFAs."
While the scheme is initially being offered to 20 non-graduates, Mr Gilmour said he expected this to eventually increase to 500 a year, with the consideration of offering a sandwich year to undergraduates studying for a financial services degree.
Mr Gilmour said: "The immediate priority is to launch the scheme, broaden it out to more non-graduates and then consider things like the sandwich year but there is so much potential here."
The scheme is being run through Skills Solutions, a training provider that is accredited by the Financial Services Skills Council, the Learning Skills Council and the Chartered Insurance Institute.
Trainees will be working towards the CII's Certificate in Financial Planning, through a mixture of work-based, classroom and one-to-one training.
Skill Solutions will provide the classroom and one-to-one training with the course being adapted specifically to the individual, depending on their current level of experience, Mr Gilmour said.
Positive Solutions' training and competence department will receive reports on the apprentices' progress every eight weeks and will also have the final sign-off on the apprentice's completion of the course.
The respective IFAs will pay the apprentices a salary and in most cases the exam fees but government-funded Skills Solutions will also cover a proportion of the training costs.
James Carter, principal of London-based IFA Independent James, said: "Anything that can encourage more fresh blood into the industry with new ideas should be applauded.
"Hopefully then you get people coming in who might be interested in the area rather than simply for the earnings, which has been the case in recent years."